Romantic Imagery in Worship Music

I've commented before on my lack of enthusiasm for romantic imagery that is so often found in contemporary worship music. I don't believe these lyrics a) accurately express how we should biblically worship and b) these lyrics chase men away from worship and therefore the church. A man should feel uncomfortable singing these lyrics. Look at it this way, if you can't see Stonewall Jackson singing these lyrics, neither should you. I appreciate the comments of Matt Redman in the video below.

Two More Ways to Write Bad Worship Songs

Bob Kauflin throws in his very valuable two cents in on the Top Ten ways to Write Bad Worship Songs. Amen! I’m not a songwriter nor do I aspire to be one but permit me to add two more. When the songwriter has got it down may I suggest that he sings it for a group of men. If it nauseates them and they head for the door, scrap the song. There has already been a mass exodus of men from our churches today and we can’t interest them in coming back. This may very well be one of the reasons why, that is, lovey-dovey songs that are more suited to be love songs than worship songs. And, the second point, we must use the name of Christ (or Lord, God, or other biblical name for one of the persons of the Godhead) in the song. If a Muslim could sing the song (not that any would) then it is not suitable for worship. Robin Mark, who is on most occasions a biblically, outstanding lyricist, stumbled when he wrote There Is No Other Name. Ironically, that name is never mentioned in the lyrics. Great tune but the lyrics sadly let us down.There are numerous other worship songs that contain one or both of these faults but the most notable is Draw Me Close which is more aptly suited for a woman to sing to the man in her life. There should be no doubt in our worship who we are singing to or what we are singing about. May we always exalt the our Lord without slipping into some kind of over-emotional, feminized sea of goo.

Your Love Is Higher

We sang this during worship yesterday. The lyrics touch the heart and are biblically sound as well.

When I’m weak and when I fail
The power of Your mighty cross prevails
When I’m tried and when I’m pressed
In the shelter of Your wings I find my rest
Oh Lord, Your love is…

Higher than the heights
Deeper than the depths
What can separate me from Your love
Your love is longer than this life
Stronger than death
Jesus, You will keep me in Your love
Jesus, You will keep me in Your love.

YOUR LOVE IS HIGHER by Mark Altrogge. Copyright 1999 Sovereign Grace Praise, a division of Sovereign Grace Music, 7505 Muncaster Mill Rd, Gaithersburg, MD 20877. All rights reserved.

Guitars, Harmonicas and Worship Music

Since I’ve never blogged about it many of you don’t realize I’m an amateur musician. Perhaps extremely amateur or pathetically amateur would be a better description but at least I’m not a rank beginner. :-) I play guitar and harmonica and love both instruments. For about 4 years or so I played on the worship team of my former church and enjoyed every minute of it. I miss that very much but for the time being I’m not attending a church that allows me the opportunity to play. In the meantime I practice when I can which is usually in between reading all those dusty Puritan works I go on about. I don’t know which instrument I have more of a passion for, guitar or harmonica. I play a bit of the blues, jazz and worship styles on guitar. I have three electric guitars, one acoustic and a bass guitar. I’ve most likely spread myself a little to thin to get really good at one of these or in one genre but I enjoy playing all of them nonetheless. My harmonicas number somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-100; all different brands, keys, tunings & types. For the last several years I've been the moderator of the Christian Harmonica discussion group on Yahoo where currently there is roughly 120 members and several who do at least occasionaly play on their church worship team. I don’t play harmonica as much as I once did as it has become somewhat of a “back-up” instrument to me and playing on one's own after playing with others can get to be a drag. Yet I still love the harp and have been working lately on playing in a rack with guitar.

So, hey, if you're into worship music or like to discuss music, i.e., blues, Celtic, rock or worship music, guitars or harmonicas leave a message. If you like the blues give me a listen on guitar here. The photo here is of one of my guitars which is a solid body, blond Squier '51. Its great for blues and rock.

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. - Psalm 150:4

The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the LORD. - Isaiah 38:20

Transcendent or Immanent

What shall we say, is God transcendent or immanent? It is a very interesting question in the realm of worship. How do we see God and in light of this how do we then worship Him? There are numerous verses that support the facts that God is both transcendent and immanent. For example, Heb 12:28 & Is. 6:5 display his immanence. The Psalms are full of passages that demonstrate his transcendence. Conversely we read of His immanence, too, in passages such as John 15:15. Matt. 6:9 & Heb 2:11-12.

John Frame offers us his view, with which I agree, in his book Contemporary Worship Music. On page 14 we read, A biblically balanced view of worship must take into account both God's transcendence and his immanence, his exaltation and his nearness, his majestic holiness and his unmeasurable love. This balance is not always easy to maintain. Churches that focus on divine transcendence are in danger of making God appear distant, aloof, unfriendly, unloving, devoid of grace. Churches that focus on God's immanence sometimes lose sight of his majesty and purity, his hatred of sin, and the consequent seriousness of any divine-human encounter. To maintain this balance, we must go back again and again to the Scriptures themselves so that we may please God in worship rather than merely acting on our own intuitions.

An excellent point, indeed. I have been in churches that have emphasized one or the other and left knowing something was missing. Granted, we are imperfect and this is a tough challenge to meet but where does your church fall? Does the pendulum swing wildly to one side or the other or does it rest somewhere in the middle. May God grant us the grace to see how we should correctly worship Him.

So, What Do We Sing, Then?

John Frame, in his book Worship In Spirit and Truth, makes the following suggestion for worship music as it relates to the CWM movement, The younger generations should learn to sympathize with this sense of loss and to accommodate their desires to the spiritual needs of their father and mothers in Christ. But the opposite is also true: if the older do not bend somewhat, the younger will be deprived of their own language of worship - those forms of God's word intelligible to them, by which they can best grow in Christ. In this respect, both sides should defer to one another in love, in the Spirit of Christ (Matthew 20:20-26).

I once attended a church that accomplished this mix very well. Often the hymns were updated but at times they were sung as written. More than half the songs were contemporary and played with keyboards, guitars and drums (and often myself on harmonica, too).

Again Frame comments, To those who object to the use of guitars and drums in worship, I would comment that the instruments mentioned in the psalm headings look more like modern guitars and percussion than modern pianos and organs. I do not believe that we are limited to the instruments mentioned in Scripture, but in considering how to set hymns to music, the biblical instrumentation can give us some clues.

God's praise also included, as we have seen, dance and clapping. Some texts urge us to praise God with a loud noise or shout (Pss. 33:3: 98:4; 100:1), or with "resounding cymbals" (Ps. 150:5). God's approach is typically accompanied by loud noises (see Ex. 19:16; Is 6:4). From these data, and from instruments mentioned above, I would conclude that the ancient music was often strongly rhythmic and loud. ...Yet there are Psalms, and parts of Psalms, which by the nature of their words seem to demand a more quiet setting, such as Ps 23; 46:10; 131:1-3.

So, we see that music is varied and wisdom is required to determine how to use music in a worship setting.

Remembering the key text in all of this is 1 Cor 14, we should make wise choices in worship music so that no one is left out and the language of music is understandable to all who may attend.

1 Cor. 14:24-25

But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

John Frame on the Regulative Principle and Music

Continuing on from the post on 5-26, Contemporary Worship Music - A Starting Point, let's look at Frame's view on the Regulative Principle (RP) in so much as it relates to music in the worship service. Before we begin, Frame's basis, and I heartily agree, is 1 Cor 14. Music, as in all parts of worship, must be understandable to anyone who may join the service. So, not only the spoken word but also the music must be in the vernacular.

From the WCF 21.1, ...But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture.

Frame does not deviate from the accepted and applied understanding of the confession here at 21.1. Where he would differ in understanding is in 1.6 as it would apply to 21.1. 1.6 states, ... there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. Here there is not even agreement of past or current adherents to the confession of the definition of "circumstances." Regardless, these decisions should still be made to the Glory of God. Further he writes concerning this, ...the term best suited to describe the sphere of human judgment is not "circumstance," but "application" (pg. 41, Worship In Spirit and Truth). Applications would include issues such as Scripture instructing us to pray, but does tell us what words to pray. Scripture instructs us to meet, but not when or where. We must us our best judgment in these issues. So, some issues are and some are not common to human actions and societies. Hence, the RP for worship applies here as well. This does not give us carte blanche to do as we please in worship. We must exercise godly judgment. We must, however, recognize that Scripture draws distinctions in different situations. Such as, to use Frame's examples again, the Lord's Supper is not an common meal, if some are hungry let them eat at home, not at the worship service. He advocates that in the decision making process that we are always subject to Scripture whether about worship or any other sphere of life. Lastly, he adds, Human wisdom may never presume to add to its [Scripture] commands. The only job of human wisdom is to apply those commands to specific situations.

Carrying this into the realm of music, Scripture does not in my opinion, based again on 1 Cor. 14, define what we are to sing. Often, I believe we should sing the Psalms or other portions of the Bible, but that's based on pragmatic reasons rather than biblical. It would be great to sing the Psalms to modern music. Frame in his book Contemporary Worship Music expertly lays out his position on this.

Returning to the first principle, he rightfully claims on page 67 of WISAT, ...Scripture also tells us, and more explicitly and emphatically, that worship should be intelligible. It should be understandable, to the worshipers, and even to non-Christian visitors (1 Cor. 14, especially vv. 24-25). And intelligibility requires contemporaneity. When churches use archaic language and follow practices that are little understood today, they compromise that biblical principle.

I hope I have accurately portrayed Frame's views here. To be sure, buy the book, give it a read and let's explore this area of RP and CWM.

Contemporary Worship Music - A Starting Point

John Frame sums up the second chapter, A Theology of Worship: Some Basics, in his book, Contemporary Worship Music: A Biblical Defense, in the following way:

Based on theological considerations fairly widely accepted in Christian churches, I believe we have seen several important reason to at least consider the use of new music in worship.

1. God's transcendence does not exclude, but rather implies his nearness to His creation and especially to His worshiping people.

2. The God-centeredness of worship does not exclude, but rather requires, consideration of the worshiper. Although God does not need contemporaneity to play His role in the worship meeting, human worshipers do.

3. In determining the rules of worship, we should recognize that sola Scriptura requires a willingness to examine critically even the most revered human traditions.

4. Music is an area in which we have little explicit scriptural direction, and in which, therefore, human creativity should be encouraged, within the limits of general biblical standards.

5. Communication is important in worship, and intelligible communication must be contemporary at least in the sense of being understandable to modern ears.

6. The Great Commission requires us to speak, to some extant, the verbal and musical languages of people outside the church.

7. Maintaining unity among the diversity of the church's membership requires that we defer to one another in love, being willing to sing one another's music rather than insisting on the music we enjoy.

8. The singing of simple, contemporary songs plays a role not only in evangelism but also in the nuture of God's of people.

There you have it, John Frame's starting point for the defense of Contemporary Worship Music (CWM). Even as one who considers himself a follower of the Regulative Principle, I still emphatically believe that CWM has a place in today's church. The above points 4, 5 & 6 I think deserve much consideration. There is no musical style for which we can employ today that we can glean from Scripture. It is simply not there to be found. Godly judgment must be used here to make wise choices. Neither can we sing with a dictionary in our hands looking up antiquated words. We must use words that all can understand and maintain a level of integrity that worship music requires. Let's face it, we've all sung words in some of these older hymns that we never use any other time in our modern speech. C'mon, what's the point? I out right reject the charge that simple praise choruses is a dumbing-down. How better to inculcate the simple truths of God to the believer and unbeliever. Lastly, concerning #6, if many in the church are turned off by older styles of music and outdated words in the lyrics, how much more so will the unbeliever be? We must communicate so that all can understand and participate in the worship service.

Next time I plan to offer and defense of how CWM naturally fits within the Regulative Principle.

Stomach Turning Lyrics

As much as I'm all for singing new & modern worship tunes I draw the line at the emotional & feminized songs that now emphasize relationship over any other aspect of Christian life and duty. Here is my most favorite song to hate, Draw Me Close:

Draw me close to you

Never let me go

I lay it all down again

To hear you say that I'm your friend

Help me find a way to bring me back to you

Chorus:

You're all I want,

You're all I've ever needed

You're all I want,

Help me know you are near

You are my desire

No one else will do

Cause no one else

Can take you place

To feel the warmth of Your embrace

Help me find a way to bring me back to you

Chorus:

You're all I want,

You're all I've ever needed

You're all I want,

Help me know you are near

Sorry guys but if you're comfortable singing that song something is terribly wrong. Read those words again. It's more suited for a man to sing to his wife or vice-versa. It's not a worship song. I agree with David Murrow, if you're a songwriter please write lyrics that draw men into manly worship. Can any of you imagine Stonewall Jackson singing this song? How about Teddy Roosevelt? They'd punch my lights out for even suggesting it if they were alive today.

Murrow has a blurb on this subject on his homepage this month.